Future Media Architects is a defunct internet development

company A company, abbreviated as co., is a Legal personality, legal entity representing an association of legal people, whether Natural person, natural, Juridical person, juridical or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members ...

founded in 2002 and focused on acquiring and developing premiere domain names and web properties. Future Media Architects is primarily known for its large portfolio of internet domain names, estimated to exceed 120,000 in 2011. Future Media Architects has faced several lawsuits related to

cybersquatting Cybersquatting (also known as domain squatting) is the practice of registering, trafficking in, or using an Internet domain name, with a bad faith intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else. The term is derived ...

activities.

History

Future Media Architects was founded by Thunayan Khalid Al-Ghanim, known by his internet alias "elequa", in 2002. Born in 1970 in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, Al-Ghanim "comes from a respected

Kuwait Kuwait, officially the State of Kuwait, is a country in West Asia and the geopolitical region known as the Middle East. It is situated in the northern edge of the Arabian Peninsula at the head of the Persian Gulf, bordering Iraq to Iraq–Kuwait ...

i family that has international business interests". By mid-2003, Future Media Architects had "amassed more than 12,000 quality domains", including media.com, multimedia.com, fm.com, mp3.tv, dj.net, and oxide.com. The company purchased i.net, a major

ICANN The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN ) is a global multistakeholder group and nonprofit organization headquartered in the United States responsible for coordinating the maintenance and procedures of several dat ...

-approved internet registry, to process and manage its portfolio of domain names purchases. By 2011, Future Media Architects held over 120,000 domain names, though Al-Ghanim said, "I haven't been an active buyer lately." In 2016, Future Media Architects reversed a longstanding policy not to sell domain names, and began offloading parts of its domain portfolio. Notably, it sold a number of four-letter domain names in the Chinese market. In 2017, Future Media Architects listed almost 10,000 domain names for sale on the Uniregistry market. Between 2014 and 2018, Future Media Architects's domain name sales were estimated at $24M. In March 2019, after "a dispute that lasted four years", Al-Ghanim was removed as an officer of Future Media Architects. The company is now under control of his sister, Shareefah Khalid Al-Ghanim. "According to court documents, Mrs. Alghanim asserted that her brother mismanaged the company, and indulged in a variety of vices impeding his judgement when making decisions about Future Media Architects. The two siblings were equal partners in the company with a 50% stake each."

Lawsuits & Controversy

Future Media Architects and Al-Ghanim have faced several lawsuits related to

activities, with judgements found both for and against Future Media Architects. Examples of disputed domains include kiwi.com, jackass.com, and calcar.org.

References

{{Reflist Companies established in 2002